Catching Up

Seriously Large monastery somewhere in a place no tourists visit.

Leaving Atlixco was unnecessary and probably foolish. It's paradise on earth. But my goal was to write my Santa Cruz epic novel and that floundered amid my punditry and online wars with other pundits....a failing I blame on my moral weakness.

Windshield or Dog?

No harm was done to this dog.

I´m almost beaten by the change in misfortunes. I told the man at the Mx-Guatemalan border that because I had no solution for his situation that I was going to pray for him and he should also pray. Indescribably bleak, like Karachi or Sao Paolo. My prayers were kind of answered by a short term solution involving a guide cooperative at the border to offer services to those crossing by vehicle. I write the whole process out in English, translate it to Spanish and then set up a booth where the guides can be hired to facilitate the process. That makes sense even if it probably won´t work. Right now the situation is beyond hopeless and is getting worse and violence is soon to follow. 100 people fighting over a bone that is still on pig´s leg walking around. But all my notes for that project soon were lost on the streets of Queztaltenango. I hunted for them but could not find them. So what kind of a sign am I to take from that?

Real glamorous night in Tapantepec, Mexico 

The difficulties soon began after crossing the border as the verticle climb out of the border valley is a sheer cliff that El Conquistador bitterly tackled. A sailboat can technically navigate a reef or rocky shoals...and technically El Conquistador can handle this terrain. But in both cases one mistake and it´s a long ride home on a bus full of broken dreams. I felt this way in Labrador, that I´d pushed the limit of the van and myself, no funds, no support, tires falling off, the wolf soon extinct, but I pressed on. Now I feel that it´s a one way trip, that no one could navigate the van backwards. One problem will follow the other until the final straw sends the van to the bottom of a cliff.

The second casualty of Guatemala

One night in Guatemala and the funnel(cap) to my spare fuel tank vanished while I slept. I wish they had taken the whole tank as it cracked in the sunlight. Why steal the funnel part? Pointless. Then I lose all my notes for saving the economy of Guatemala...The moped would not start in my desperate attempt to avoid driving. The plugs were fouled...maybe the altitude of 8000 ft is the problem. I drive off and the rear view mirror falls out of the frame and cracks in half on the ground...
I find a place that is flat to properly get my hands dirty fixing the moped....spend two hours cleaning everything....it starts at the exact moment near dusk that a large dog is struck by a truck about 30 feet away from me. The dog´s leg flies off like the animal had stepped on a landmine. I see the leg arc through the reddening sky,...the animal has broken back, no leg, motionless, starts to whine. A volcano nearby has erupted but the busy highway brings no serenity. I think, ¨travel means fixing petty bullshit in exotic places.¨

There are thousands of stray dogs here..that make the Mexican stray dogs look as healthy as Odie and Marmaduke. To make my point about 15 stray dogs came out to bark at the dying, 3 legged dog in the road. Maybe they were mocking him. But to see one maimed and killed in front of me still pained me. It whined pitifully until it was run over repeatedly by another truck or two. I kicked the tires of the moped in futile anger, unable to help. I had no resources to drag the dog to the side and didn´t want to risk my life for a dog corpse. And I was disappointed in myself and the world. I should note that Guatemalans like Mexicans and other Central Americans have a high tolerance for stray dogs. much higher than Americans. Americans think that by rounding the dogs up and executing about 90% of them that they are more humane. How the fuck is that more humane? Well, dogs run free and wild in Central America and locals do not mistreat them and do try to avoid hitting them with their trucks and buses. But in this case it was getting dark and the dog was dark and picked a busy time of day to dart across the street...so it died. No one tried to kill the dog and it was probably dragged to the shoulder when traffic died down. Locals do not deign to interfere with dog survival. It is more a "live and let live" situation. In some towns there are so many stray dogs that their corpses are burned to generate energy. Imagine 200,000 stray dogs. I should also note that people approach me daily who are undernourished. I'm wearing a ridiculous Mayan bracelet that I had to buy out of pity. Guatemala is not like Haiti, but someone from Haiti might just prefer to stay in Haiti if they were offered the option to immigrate to Guatemala. My point is that resources are stressed here and dogs obey the Pope too so the result is rough.

All the signs pointed for me to get away but there is no away. Oggy has come to the end of the road and he can´t go back. Surrounded by volcanos.

Of course it´s my fault for trying to find a culture that isn´t poisoned and I accept that. I´m hungry now and can not adequately type on this broke ass internet cafe keyboard. Now I remember why I like my own computer.

My advice is to Pray.

Desperation

Now I have arrived at the edge of darkness, the lawless land. I met a toothless coyote bringing 4 Honduran teens north. they had only small backpacks...the coyote had nothing. they had no papers so could not drive so they walked and jumped the train and took the bus at night so they could pretend to be asleep at the checkpoints.
Ï ask who is in charge, and no one answers.
this is a desperation that wakes me up. it´s hot, I´m sweating and thirsty and many people are hungry. Lawyers, guns and money would solve all my problems.
 the resources in Chiapas are stressed to breaking. The coyote said,´once, this was Guatemala.¨and he´s speaking of Chiapas...so now Guatemalans recross the border that was once somewhere else as this story plays out repeatedly in history.
This is beyond changing, it is human nature. so is the part about villanizing people struggling to survive. the coyote was toothless and he was escorting teens to the northern promised land, but I had a nice conversation with him. I think he was an American citizen...somehow, spoke english, he seemed a bit of a philosopher and a student of life.
I need a quesedilla.

I will try to write a detailed essay of this particular scenario but it requires some time to digest. But for now I want to warn anyone approaching Guatemala and Central America in general that things are kind of desperate here. grown men ride bicycles far into the mountains to pick up wood, small branches and then bicycle back to town with the fuel for their Mezcal refineries. It´s good mezcal, espcially the jamaica flavored, but my point is the lengths we will go to survive. that´s the issue really. Only innocent Oggy would go to Guatemala to look for work while thousands flee because of lack of work. I am resourceful, but more than that I can´t tolerate the level of manipulation I´ve seen in the north. it´s pure poison, obviously debilitating to mankind, but because it produces sales it is allowed. I want a place that does not tolerate slimfast garbage and that makes me a fundamentalist, a pilgrim, a religious refugee...the exodus of one in a 45 year old mayflower.

do what you will do but when you approach Guatemala hide your valuables, don´t hand your paperwork to anyone without a visible gun....don´t believe anyone who is walking...only converse with individuals in an office in a uniform. be prepared for chaos.

Detour

Rough day of driving....like crossing a parking lot full of tire curbs and simply driving over all the curbs one after another for hours

Crubs? No problem, just drive over them...for hours.

I made one mistake after another, got so lost I didn´t even bother asking the people where I was...it would`ve been embarrancar. I had some musing that basically involved an outline of a person....and every day is a pencil line in filling the person´s outline up. and the pencil lines are richness...but not necessarily riches. There is a fine difference between the two. Richness is watching the sun set, smelling flowers, breathing mountain air. Riches is importing fish, drawing blueprints of a garage, programming an animated dog.

More on that later.

A Sign From Aztec Gods?

Tranquility

So, my last day in Atlixco, packed, even woke up before noon, a final picture of El Conquistador between the volcanoes and the cloudless sky, the Paso de Cortes right around the smoke stack.

And then about 40 seconds later...

A sign?

Moments after turning around to get out of town the volcano erupts. It´s active and usually puffs ash but not during the 30 seconds I happen to have my van in front of it. Even if you don´t believe in signs this will make wonder....a van called El Conquistador has about a 120 second window of opportunity in front of two volcanoes named by Aztecs...like 400 years after the Conquistadores existed...and the volcano erupts at that exact moment?

I took it as a sign to turn south...head toward unknown lands.

Atlixco Survived

I was curious so I cheated with this compilation